J.R. Smith did not ladle out many details, but on Saturday he did say he was amused by the social media reaction to his one-game ban for throwing soup at Cavaliers assistant coach Damon Jones.
“Some of them were actually pretty funny,” Smith, who was banned for the Cavaliers’ loss to the Philadelphia 76ers on Thursday last year, said of the “bisque-it ball” and “souperteam” cracks.
The Cavs had only said that he was suspended for conduct detrimental to the team, but details of the incident after Thursday morning’s shootaround soon leaked out.
“I understand that everything I do is going to have a meme or whatever behind it — that’s just part of the day and age we live in,” Smith said at shootaround on Saturday in preparation for the Cavs’ game against the Denver Nuggets.
“If this was 15 years ago, nobody would have even knew. It’s just part of the game,” he added.
Smith declined to say whether he agreed with the team’s decision to have him sit out one game.
“It’s not really my call,” he said. “More than anything, I talked to my teammates about it, everybody seemed cool. We moved on from it as a team, so whether it warranted a suspension or not, that’s not my job.”
Cavaliers coach Tyronn Lue on Thursday said that Smith would be back in his starting spot on Saturday. Smith said he would not go into the game feeling he has something to prove.
“I’m just trying to get better for my teammates and try to play Cavs basketball the way we’ve been playing,” he said.
Superstar teammate LeBron James had no comment.
“Ain’t got nothing to do with me,” James said. “Momma told me a long time ago to mind your business.”
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
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